On this board and others, there have been a number of fights over half-orcs, with some people violently proclaiming them wonderful or even over-powered, and others proclaiming them weak and useless, with very few people (at least amongst those who post) anywhere in the middle.
Now, the usual explenation of why people have such opposite opinions is playing style. If you dungeon crawl, half-orcs are great; if you do city-based adventures with lots of diplomacy, they suck. I've never found this explenation satisfactory. I'm a power-gamer, sometimes a munchkin, and I would *never* play a half-orc.
I think I've found the real explenation, though. After many an argument, it suddenly occured to me that there was a real difference between the two camps of half-orc haters and half-orc likers: how they generate ability scores.
If you create characters by point buy, the half-orcs bonus is more important than its penalties. The system is skewed in such a way that it's almost impossible, even under the most generous allotment of points, to start out with an ability score of 18. Even a 16 is very high. Thus, the +2 Str bonus of the half-orc is very, very attractive. You can buy a Str of 16 and get it up to 18 -- which is about the only way you'll have a starting character with a Str score that high.
On the other end, even with two penalties, the half-orc isn't that weakened. The absolute worst Int and Cha scores you can have is 6. Buying a score up to 12 only costs 4 points each, so for 8 points you can have no penalties whatsover. Or you can just spend 4 to remove the Int penalty. While it does eat up some points to compensate, it's not that bad.
However, if you create characters with dice rolling, scores of 18 are not uncommon. Let's face it: if you're rolling dice to generate ability scores, it's highly likely that you're not just going to roll 4d6 six times. You're probably going to do that several times until you get a "decent" character -- and you're probably not cheating, either. Your DM is highly likely to be going along with you. For dice-rolled characters, scores of 18 are not all that uncommon. It's kind of expected, really. So getting an 18 Str score is really not all that special. And, while it's kind of nice to have a 20 Str, it doesn't mean as much under this system. It's not nearly as hard to get or as special.
The flip side of dice rolling is that your minimum scores are 3, not 6, which is a HUGE difference. If you roll up a character that is 18 18 15 14 6 4, you're probably going to keep it. But those penalties are going to really, really, really hurt now. You won't just be somewhat dumb and uncharismatic -- you're utterly hopeless. You can compensate for one penalty, but two is much tougher.
So that, I think, is why some people think half-orcs are fine, and others think they suck. If you use the official character generation method, their penalties outweigh their benefits. If you use the optional non-standard method, their bonus outweighs even two penalties.
So. What do y'all think of my analysis?
